If you enjoy the work I put into these and any of my content, please consider hitting the like and subscribe if you haven't! Those two things help my channel massively thank you! EDIT: Before saying "you should've used a more clump prone grinder," consider the results. The BEST method is exactly the one that actually ADDED clumps and caked grounds. You're working from a completely unproven baseline of WDT is necessary for declumping. This has never been proven. Even with clumps and caked grounds, the shaker was the best. Tamping seems to alleviate clumps. This was hypothesized years ago by Perger and even more recently by Samo Smrke, the university professor of Chemistry whom I consulted in this video. Cheers
@jeffmattel7867 Let me counter. A cartoon of a grandpa and his small grandchild were looking at all the tools neatly on a board in his garage. The child asked "What are those for" grandpa said "to make friends". Tools are just that. It'll do the job but it's more than that.
@@vuongnh0607l I bet I can 3d print one for a few cents, the same as I can 3d print the “moonraker” AKA Umikot, and the biggest expense is 10 acupuncture needles.
I've always maintained that WDT is more significant the less consistent the equipment (grinder) is. These results seem unsurprising and logical to me. I think a much more interesting experiment would be to do this with an entry level grinder (ESP, SGP, etc.) and maybe a baseline home machine (Silvia Pro X?) and see how the different methods compare, perhaps including grinding direct to the portafilter as well.
Hopefully people take Lance up on the offer from Dr. Gange, because if there are enough people who replicate the experiment on their own equipment the sooner we get your exact answers.
At last someone making a valid point instead of meat riding the creator. All these nick nacks are there to fix the issues of using a set up that costs a fraction of this £10k plus one. If I spent £3500+ on a grinder I would hope that it has done all the hard work for me. Doing the type of experiments done here just has no relevance to anybodys real world daily coffee making.
@@Thetache phoar he's out of line, but he's right lol I appreciate that we would want to hold the grinder as a controlled variable, but maybe not the best choice to pick one that isn't creating the issue we are looking to resolve with wdt. I don't think this invalidates the test completely though tbf a lot of people are grinding into dosing cups with good grinders and still going ham with wdt afterwards
Valid point, @@Thetache. However, I find it really hard to believe people investing 500 coins on their setup will invest 400+ (ie: Moonraker) on a distribution tool.
Lance, you are the only channel on YT that has outdone the Hoffster for me. It's incredibly rare to find someone in any passionate community who can step back, avoid biases as much as possible and rely on the scientific method and that's exactly what you're providing here. I love it, please keep up the amazing work, it's extremely valuable to us coffee nerds.
I appreciate the format of the last couple of videos (method, data, explanation) while streamlining the delivery. This is very well presented as usual. Thanks for the effort!
Fantastic. Thank you. I am a data person and really appreciate the effort, time and analysis that you put into these videos. Though many variables are in play, you make an effort to keep the experiment as pure and consistent as possibke through out. That's great. Keep the great work. Hope your channel grow a lot!
I’ve seen significant improvement in the evenness of flow since watching this. I shake a few times with my dosing cup against my portafilter and then lightly tap/WDT to get the surface even. Even if the surface doesn’t look perfectly even, this has taught me that the evenness of the bulk matters more than the surface.
I've been practicing the "grind from my Niche into a tight fitting portafilter cup and shake, shake, shake, cheap Amazon Ikape Spring Tamp 1x and twist" method for a while because I was too lazy to do anything else. Turns out that could be as good as any gadget I could buy or 3d print. As a chemical engineer that is a slave to the scientific method, i always trust your reviews more than others. In god we trust, others bring DATA. Thanks Lance!
❤🎉 Great video, Lance-straight to the point and very valuable! As someone who's a bit coffee-obsessed, I think there’s a limit where too many steps can lead to diminishing returns, or worse, undo the progress we've made. For me, stirring with a needle feels like one of those unnecessary steps in the espresso workflow. Dosing into the cup, giving it a shake, and tamping seems like the simplest, most effective method for consistently high-quality results.
When I had a $200 grinder, I wasn't able to pull decent shots without Wdt. So as you said, a cheaper grinder could benefit greatly from the Wdt. I think the Webber grinder does such a good job with particle distribution that from that high baseline you can only screw it up with Wdt.
I grind to the Sette 270's cup. I shake it a bit. Throw it into the basket. Gentle tap. Wdt. NCD like distributor. Tamp. Puck screen (i don't like the concentrated water flow of my machine). Extraction time.
Thank you Lance for all these recent brilliant uploads. This in particular, relived me from massive frustration that I was going to change my grinder. I was directly grinding into portafilter and getting really skewed results. All fixed now, thanks to a few shakes before dosing!
I think that, WDT and the Moonraker and such, the grounds are being sorted with the smallest grinds at the bottom and the largest to the top. The problem being that grinds of a larger size, are getting less water contact time. In the blind shaker, even distribution where the fines and boulders are homogeneous, it produces an even flow (Pearl Jam). It's less like mixing chocolate chips in cookie dough and more like mixing sand, gravel and rocks with water, the sand will always find its way to the bottom, and then the gravel then the rocks. So we are left with the 007 of distribution, shaken not stirred.
I find grinding into a glass container and giving it a Good bang and a stir with a Wooden cocktail stick,then pouring into my portafilter and a next tappetey tap then tamp with spring tamp + puck screen (no water added to beans) Using a niche zero,I believe the destat is essential 😺
Wow Lance there so much work has gone into this video. As a newbie your videos are a fanatic source of information you’ve really helped me improve my espresso. This morning I tried a good old shake before transferring to the basket and really just sorted out the puck surface with the WDT tool and double tamp. All the espressos were a significant step up from where they’ve been, extractions were way more even . Wife said her coffee this morning was a life time best ever. Basically you and your teams vid just justified all the money I’ve spent of a coffee kit. I owe You big time!
Great video! Interest results, I would like to know if the shots were also tasted to check which method pulled the best tasting shots. Just curious because higher extraction doesn’t always mean better tasting shots, so the combination of this data would be more helpful I think
Only one question, does higher extraction yield make a better tasting coffee always? In the audio community what measures great does'nt always sound better than that which measures worse. Keep up the good work.
If I remember correctly, the belief in this metric is that higher extraction yield in the shot = a better overall distribution of water over the grounds, which directly correlates to a more uniform distribution of grounds in the portafilter and lack of clumps or other physical abnormalities, prior to the tamp. An inconsistently distributed, clumpy basket would thus be limited in terms of extraction in comparison to one where water is allowed to flow evenly over the entirety of the puck.
The short answer is “no.” The long answer is that it depends on the coffee. Some coffees taste best at 23% extraction. Some at 17% extraction. Some in between or outside those numbers. What matters is being able to consistently control what variables you can to adjust the extraction predictably and reliably. At the end of the day, what matters is how the shot tastes, and if you had some nerdy fun along the way then that’s even better 😁
Wow Lance there so much work has gone into this video 👏. As a newbie your videos are a fanatic source of information you’ve really helped me improve my espresso. This morning I tried a good old shake before transferring to the basket and really just sorted out the puck surface with the WDT tool and double tamp. All the espressos were a significant step up from where they’ve been, extractions were way more even . Wife said her coffee this morning was a life time best ever. Basically you and your teams vid just justified all the money I’ve spent of a coffee kit. I owe You big time!
Morning Lance, I really liked the style of presenting your findings! In the future it would be helpful for me personally if you'd make a little colored mark in the finding sheets when you talk about specific points in your results. Specifically shot time and extraction sheets were shown for a few seconds and then your got to the next subject. You might argue: pause the video and so on, but I don't want to. You got an interesting subject, you present very good, but with the speed you have I am getting a bit behind comprehending and would like to see the sheets a bit longer and some highlight markers over the current subject. Content wise it really helped me. I use a sage expresso grinder, cheaper than the weber and it really helps not choosing to grind into portafilter and try the shaking the grounds in the container method. Thank you for the effort! Gratings for Germany. ❤
Great video at the perfect time. I've been struggling with one sided extraction no matter how much I use the wdt method. It was only the day before your dropped this that I pondered whether it was caused by sitting the portafilter on the grinder holder as it was throwing the grinds towards the handle. Simply holding the portafilter and moving it around proved the plausibility of the idea as i had back to back perfection extractions after this. This video has expanded on that and filled in the blanks. Can't wait to play with some shaking. Cheers dude
It sounds like the shaker is doing a macro management of the grounds, and distributing them very well. The needles do something closer to a micro management. And with micro management, you are almost working on every grain of ground coffee individually. With a perfect micro, you shouldn't ignore any ground until you reach the optimum management level. The needles are not small enough to only affect one ground at a time, so it's not a perfect micro. But possibly, it does quite a little in terms of macro, and leave tons of grounds untouched. And possibly, it hurts some grounds, because the grounds are not necessarily managed well.
I agree. The shaker is mixing fines and boulders to make the grounds more homogeneous. Excessive WDT might even make it less homogeneous as the fines fall to the bottom and the boulders stay on top. I personally find that fluffing in a small, rounded bowl is even better than shaking in a cup with corners. It does the macro homogenation while also avoiding clumping. But maybe it’s just a matter of technique. Don’t shake the shaker like it’s a cocktail; toss the contents like it’s a salad. And if WDT is needed to break up clumps, do it first, then toss, pour, level, and tamp.
So what I see here is that you've tested more or less the worst scenario (meaning the best grind and least clumping from the get go), which makes these tools have less to do. I would love to see the opposite. You could keep the grinder etc as you already have, but instead introduce more clumping before doing your tests. An idea could be pouring the coffee in, do a tamp, and THEN rip all up using a spoon or similar, use the chosen tool afterwards, then retamp. Then you should have introduced a lot of clumping and should allow as much as possible of the declumping to the tool you're testing. But as always, great videos. Great that you are testing as vigorously as you do
I agree in general, but tearing up a tamped grounds will be horribly inconsistent and quite far from reality. Better to use a more common household grinder in the 150€-500€ range, which would also be a far closer match to a home barista setup.
@@Sebb747 that was my initial thinking too. But I then realized that a household grinder would add lots of variability in grind size too, making them unreliable for this sort of testing.
That’s exactly what I was thinking and feel like this definitely needs to be redone before Lance praisers go preach this message everywhere that blind shakers are 100% the best.
It's a neat idea and a fun experiment, but I don't see how that actually makes a difference for reality. If the shaker was doing enough and in less time while the other tools weren't able to improve upon the base scenario it created... then I'm not sure the data coming out of this artificial tamp and break would say much that's useful.
Excellent Video! Time also flew by, loved the presentation and the way you made your "biases" perfectly clear as in what exactly you did and how it might affect others (grinding directly into the portafilter) differently. Great Job Lance!
Definitely enlightening, would be insteresting too see the same experiment but dose the baskets with a normal dosing cup (and dose the blind shaker from a normal dosing cup) EDIT: would also be nice to hear about the flavour difference if any, as we know higher extraction doesn't always mean better
Personally, I'm getting more consistent shots if I just shake my portafilter with the Niche dosing cup rather than using my WDT tool. I always wondered why. Now, I (might) know. Thanks for your insane level of dedication! I wonder if excessive EDTing as suggested in this recent study would still have a significant effect.
This is fantastic Lance!!! The results are surprising yet not surprising. I've often wondered if all the "things" we do to try to get the best results are counterproductive or doing nothing at all. This proves, at least in your controlled testing, that may be the case. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into these tests, and for putting yourself out there knowing the coffee community can be less than receptive to information that my counter their current views. Keep up the great work, and nice job on the camera work and edit Hugo!!
My main reason for using the 3d printed Umikot is that it makes the puck prep consistent, no matter what, and I haven't really had any bad shots since I started using it, which certainly wasn't the case before. I often had channeling issues, probably because I wasn't paying attention or had a sleepy head, and I have the feeling this saves me from all of that. Could I have better extraction using another method? Maybe - but I'd also have a lot more terrible shots too.
Thank you so much Lance for giving us an excellent base line to further test against. 🎉 I need to up my patreon donation. Surely you’ve more than earned it.
Seems to not be the case when you consider the way he didn't dose direct to porta filter. WDT would like lower extraction if done after using a shaker, based on his results and what he stated in the video as it would disturb the bottom of the bed.
This changes everything! Love that you really go through your methodology and that your graphs show all the data points. Guess that I have to find a blind tumbler instead of the WDT. Also a quicker step than WDT before every shot.
Awesome video, nice and concise. Would love to see the same experiments in a direct to portafilter format (which i guess is what most of us do). Cheers! Love your content
Fantastic experiment and great results! I love the actual science you’re doing here Lance. The repeat testing and stats put your work in a league of its own. The data are the data and your results are clear. Great “discussion section” part trying to put it all into context and interpret it for us as well.
There’s a certain appeal to this. With as complicated as espresso machines can be with temperature and pressure profiles, as expensive it is to move to a grinder one tier up, it seems wonderful that all the faffing about with grounds and puck prep probably doesn’t matter as much as we thought. Spritz, grind, shake, tamp and go. I think I want it to be true, and so far evidence suggests it might be.
Honestly the WDT is more of a meditation tool at this point. It didn’t really do anything other than add time to my routine, but it’s always been fun to use. I’ve always had great shots with just a shake using the dosing cup.
Puck prep is still important... It's just that the initial distribution is already good in his experiment because of the WW magic tumbler he uses for every method before distribution.
so shaker, leveled tamper, top screen, bottom paper for ims/vst style baskets, no bottom paper for expensive baskets unless for cleanliness or on a fancy machine, freeze or wet your beans before grinding, do cupping, and buy good beans
Omg I feel so much better about stopping using my Wdt over the weber shaker for the past couple months after watching this. I got a 3d printed copy of the moonraker but stopped using it because I felt it was just more messy. This video is awesome!
Hi Lance, i'm 15 years old and have been tasked to create a study on anything of my choice for school. I was wondering if you would be able to provide any help or guidance for me as my chosen study is: "Coffee Ground Distribution Method Suitability for Commercial Settings"
I wanted to try this out after seeing this video. I have a hand grinder and I put the receiver cup with ground beans on my porta filter with a dosing funnel, gave it a shake, did a little manual WDT just to get the top surface flat… and honesty best cup so far!!!! Thank you Lance!
@@error.418I always tap the bottom of the porta filter once, lightly, on the a silicone mat that’s sitting on my counter. Just to get the beans off the edge of my dosing funnel. Feels satisfying. I personally feel like it’s more accurate / consistent than hitting it on the side with my hand
Absolutely fascinating. I would like to see a couple more datasets, in particular with espresso grinders consumers are more likely to have. What is best practices on a "clumpy grinder"? Also, I'd like to see a dataset with direct to portafilter, and a best practices there as well.
Awesome work! Makes absolute sense when you think about it: Shaking homogenizes the grounds so that fines, boulders and everything in between is distributed as randomly as possible and thus giving an even flow through the puck. Clumps don't matter as they are smashed by tamping. What WDT in contrast does, is distributing a significant "mass" of grounds around the basket. While not necessarily bad, it is not actually "mixing" all the differently sized particles around at random, as the shaking does. So there will be areas with more fines and slower flow as well as areas with less fines and faster flow and basically channeling. So even though the "mass" of grounds is distributed around in the basket evenly, the particles themselves are not mixed evenly. If done excessively (and depending on consistency of the technique) it should probably even cause the fines to separate and migrate to the bottom.
Yes can we please see this! I used just the magic tumbler with my weber key but switched to Autocomb followed by NCD and feel my shots are more consistent. But feel is different from stats.
Since I have a DF64, I dose in its cup, then put it directly on top of the portafilter just like you did at 14:15. The problem is that IF you don't shake most of the coffee sits on one side... basically there's more ground on the side that falls first. So I use needles (cheepo WDT tool) to distribute. Strangely enough, and as you mentioned, WDT doesn't do much about this. There is still more ground on one side, so much so that after tapping the PF on the kitchen top, I have to "touch up" the surface and move some grounds to the other side. I'll try to change the routine and simply shake like you're preparing a cocktail (although it will probably be slightly messy as the cup isn't a perfect fit), and then touch up the surface. Then see if I get more consistent shots, since I log every shot anyway.
Really enjoyed this, thankyou. I appreciate and understand why you did it this way but id love to see the results of a direct grind to portafilter, with a good grinder, maybe not endgame, a bit more of a real life scenario. Also, idea for a video... Ristrettos! Id love a deep dive! Theres a lot of conflicting and just wrong ideas on this, a lot of them way out of date for "modern" espresso. Big love from Yorkshire UK.
This is absolutely a breath of fresh air. Ive been going nuts trying to justify buying a 3d printer for a Umikot or just buying a Moonraker. Knowing that just SHAKING my grounds in my dosing cup will simplify my morning workflow so much. Definitely trying the shaking method first thing tomorrow morning
The glass from the Costco Delici Sea Salt Caramel Mousse cups perfectly fit a 58mm portafilter and are great for this distribution method. Just thought I would drop that out there since I have repurposed the glasses years ago for coffee use. You get 6 in the pack, so you will have spares, and also a sweet dessert with your coffee.
Well, direct to portafilter plus manual WDT is pretty convenient compared with having to have another vessel to now grind into. Especially if you then also use the moonraker to better distribute the top layer.
Really interesting results, counterintuitive at first but makes sense. The bottom of the bed is critical and a quick shake works better than all the fancy tools that disrupt a simple process. Thanks for doing the testing to teach the community
I’m new to home espresso (6 months) and I kind of think that this gives me an advantage in the sense that I haven’t grown up in the hobby with the tools being gradually introduced and skewing my thoughts, they are all there in front of me now. What I’m very poorly trying to say is that common sense tells me a shake with a dosing cup and then a tap will always get the job done. I am susceptible to gimmicks in anything I try my hand at including WDT etc.
Lance I really feel like the video quality has been going way up recently. The editing has been getting a lot tighter, and you are doing a better job at continuing the video audio while cutting to b roll instead of leaving dead air. The scripts feel much more concise too!
I have a Eureka Mignon Libra (weight based) grinder. When grinding directly into a naked portafilter, my friend and I consistently noticed that the same half of the basked would saturate/extract before the other half. After many more shots, we realized what Lance confirms here at 7:00. Manual WDT has been mandatory ever since due to the way that the grounds are unevenly deposited into the portafilter.
My brain is spinning with this lol. I used to use a dosing cup instead of pouring straight into my portafilter. However, I finally got a grinder that could hold my porta with a funnel so I no longer needed this “extra” step. The dosing cup is now used to weight the beans, into which I spray rdt before grinding. Since some water stays in the cup, I don’t want to use it to catch the grounds, at least in my current workflow. Guess it’s time to get that Loveramics dosing cup I’ve been eying 😅
Looking back and actually putting things into perspective, I’ve always shake the coffee grounds in my dosing cup and shake it again in my portafilter and did a surface level WDT. This has been the most consistent method for me. I’ve used the OCD tool to kinda make it an even ground but I found that those shots tend to be the most inconsistent. This video was great ! Thank you for the thorough explanation and willingness to experiment for all of us!
Some people in the comments are taking this new discovery as “see? We’ve been over-complicating espresso!” I think the more interesting conclusion is: the path to good espresso isn’t always intuitive or obvious. We used to think that a fast extraction was bad and that you should cut a shot off when it blonds. We thought that crema is delicious and that high brew temperatures burn the coffee. But sometimes you have to (forgive the pun) shake things up a little to make progress :)
Im so happy about your video. I just had a discussion about how the moonraker is a game changer, but i did not see any improvements at all. but its a long time since i ground the last time directly in to the portafilter, so i know i have to watch out for inconsistencies😅
Lance, thank you for this video. I've been holding off a WDT of some sort for years, not thinking much of it and grinding direct to portafilter. After this video it points me in the right direction and I'll try out grinder direct to cup, shake, then portafilter.
Very interesting results! At the end of the day I think you are correct in saying that we are over doing things. Like any hobby people always seek methods to improve the process, but sometimes the best way to improve the process is to do less (remember the KISS method). This also shows that for some the goal isn’t necessarily better or improved extractions, but more as a flex to who has the most expensive tools and keeps up with the current and popular trends. Me personally, I just want the best cup of coffee possible and at the same time enjoy tinkering. 😀 Thank you for another great video, I always enjoy your content.
Great video, thanks. It echoes my experience with coffees from very light roasts to neapolitan in my la pavoni europiccola manual lever and I thought I was doing something wrong(likely I was using WDT wrong). I have a 0.3mm 9-needle wdt tool and a small (4x4cm) tupperware container. I always get the best results when I grind into that tupperware container, I shake it a bit, I put grounds into the portafilter and I only use WDT on the very top ~2mm of coffee to distribute it evenly. Then I give it few taps on the table and tamp. This is my most consistent, best extraction ever technique. Every single time I WDT'ed the entire depth the results were worse. My observations go even further, I use Eureka Mignon grinder and it doesn't clump much. I noticed, especially with very light roasts that I grind very fine (they are prone to channelling with slightest unevenness in distribution if not pre infused a looong time) when I ground directly to the portafilter I got much better results just using the WDT tool to distribute the very top 2~3mm of grounds than "going all the way". I'm glad to see my subjective experience validated scientifically by your video :-)
Right so been getting into Espresso lately, found an 80 euro Lelit Anna, looking for a grinder and tools. This video just saved me some cash actually, needle tool, dosing cup and a self leveling tamper, no more distribution tool needed
14:15 was a great lightbulb moment for me. I have a Cafelat Robot and a Timemore 064s, and the dosing cup fits perfectly into the portafilter. I'll be trying this out, no needles this week.
If you enjoy the work I put into these and any of my content, please consider hitting the like and subscribe if you haven't! Those two things help my channel massively thank you!
EDIT: Before saying "you should've used a more clump prone grinder," consider the results. The BEST method is exactly the one that actually ADDED clumps and caked grounds. You're working from a completely unproven baseline of WDT is necessary for declumping. This has never been proven. Even with clumps and caked grounds, the shaker was the best. Tamping seems to alleviate clumps. This was hypothesized years ago by Perger and even more recently by Samo Smrke, the university professor of Chemistry whom I consulted in this video. Cheers
Love this kind of content! Thank you Lance for challenging assumptions and expanding our understanding!
Aaahhhhh! I just ordered a spirographic WDT tool 😩 should have been a tumbler instead! We have to talk about your video timing😜
man you nailed my objection. i was going to go on about grinders then i read the before you.... amazing analysis Lance.
How did the shots tasted? Or they were only measured the TDS? Because you might be getting better extraction but the shots might have a worse taste.
Thank you I wish you could have included that mahlkönig cup shaking I to your project to see if just a cup like that is sufficient.
Maybe the real distribution tool is the friends we made along the way
Best comment
lame.
The real wdt was within us all along.
I'm a huge fan of my umikot wdt and I can print More of em as needed. Definitely showed me I'm not as good at manual wdt as I thought I was.
@jeffmattel7867 Let me counter. A cartoon of a grandpa and his small grandchild were looking at all the tools neatly on a board in his garage. The child asked "What are those for" grandpa said "to make friends".
Tools are just that. It'll do the job but it's more than that.
It's kind of hilarious that shaking grounds around in a jar does a better job than some Rolex looking complex wdt thing
A lot like a $20 Casio does a better job at keeping time than a $10k Rolex
coffee boiz with their overpriced tools:😧😭😖
@@Valspartame_Maelstrom you think that shaking jar isn't overpriced? (it's freaking $80)
@@vuongnh0607l I bet I can 3d print one for a few cents, the same as I can 3d print the “moonraker” AKA Umikot, and the biggest expense is 10 acupuncture needles.
@@vuongnh0607l (I never said this fancy doo-dad was cheap)
Lance why are you such a gift to the coffee community?
🥲🥲🥲
There were four extra words, that while also very true, could easily be left off and you'd still end up with a deep fact. Lance is a gift ❤
Agreed!
I've always maintained that WDT is more significant the less consistent the equipment (grinder) is. These results seem unsurprising and logical to me.
I think a much more interesting experiment would be to do this with an entry level grinder (ESP, SGP, etc.) and maybe a baseline home machine (Silvia Pro X?) and see how the different methods compare, perhaps including grinding direct to the portafilter as well.
Hopefully people take Lance up on the offer from Dr. Gange, because if there are enough people who replicate the experiment on their own equipment the sooner we get your exact answers.
At last someone making a valid point instead of meat riding the creator. All these nick nacks are there to fix the issues of using a set up that costs a fraction of this £10k plus one. If I spent £3500+ on a grinder I would hope that it has done all the hard work for me. Doing the type of experiments done here just has no relevance to anybodys real world daily coffee making.
@thetache the comment I was looking for…
@@Thetache phoar he's out of line, but he's right lol
I appreciate that we would want to hold the grinder as a controlled variable, but maybe not the best choice to pick one that isn't creating the issue we are looking to resolve with wdt.
I don't think this invalidates the test completely though tbf a lot of people are grinding into dosing cups with good grinders and still going ham with wdt afterwards
Valid point, @@Thetache. However, I find it really hard to believe people investing 500 coins on their setup will invest 400+ (ie: Moonraker) on a distribution tool.
Is this video medieval? Because I like Lancealot.
Haha 😂😂😂😂
lol
are the grounds distributed? I thought in a monarchy all land belongs to the king
Hahaha. I see what you did there. You must be a history buff....
Get out
Lance, you are the only channel on YT that has outdone the Hoffster for me. It's incredibly rare to find someone in any passionate community who can step back, avoid biases as much as possible and rely on the scientific method and that's exactly what you're providing here. I love it, please keep up the amazing work, it's extremely valuable to us coffee nerds.
How James Bond of you Lance. “Shaken not stirred” 🍸
So thats how you do an Espresso Martini. No WDT!
Love the video. I rarely comment on anything, but that transition from 6:37. Man, that was beautiful
Great video Lance. 👏
Thanks, Kyle!
Lance vs kyle.
Lance does a video with Kyle's new coffee
I appreciate the format of the last couple of videos (method, data, explanation) while streamlining the delivery. This is very well presented as usual. Thanks for the effort!
Fantastic. Thank you. I am a data person and really appreciate the effort, time and analysis that you put into these videos. Though many variables are in play, you make an effort to keep the experiment as pure and consistent as possibke through out. That's great. Keep the great work. Hope your channel grow a lot!
I’ve seen significant improvement in the evenness of flow since watching this. I shake a few times with my dosing cup against my portafilter and then lightly tap/WDT to get the surface even. Even if the surface doesn’t look perfectly even, this has taught me that the evenness of the bulk matters more than the surface.
ありがとうございます！
I've been practicing the "grind from my Niche into a tight fitting portafilter cup and shake, shake, shake, cheap Amazon Ikape Spring Tamp 1x and twist" method for a while because I was too lazy to do anything else. Turns out that could be as good as any gadget I could buy or 3d print. As a chemical engineer that is a slave to the scientific method, i always trust your reviews more than others. In god we trust, others bring DATA. Thanks Lance!
One tip: rather than shaking hard like an ice cocktail, toss gently like a salad. Mix, but don’t clump.
Danke!
Wow, revelation! Love it. Would love to see follow up video that hones in on the weber shaker with ocd, surface wdt, and nothing. Thank you Lance!
❤🎉 Great video, Lance-straight to the point and very valuable! As someone who's a bit coffee-obsessed, I think there’s a limit where too many steps can lead to diminishing returns, or worse, undo the progress we've made. For me, stirring with a needle feels like one of those unnecessary steps in the espresso workflow. Dosing into the cup, giving it a shake, and tamping seems like the simplest, most effective method for consistently high-quality results.
Holy shit the editing and pacing in this video is insane. Well done
Mind blown, thanks Lance!
When I had a $200 grinder, I wasn't able to pull decent shots without Wdt. So as you said, a cheaper grinder could benefit greatly from the Wdt. I think the Webber grinder does such a good job with particle distribution that from that high baseline you can only screw it up with Wdt.
You produce awesome content. So much information with so much emphasis on communicating the important facts. Thank you for putting your content out.
Well shit. You've made me order an $85 metal cylinder. Thanks for that, sir. 🤣
Cheaper than a $200-400 spinnny needle thing at least.
Just bought the Blind Shaker.
Been asking myself this question since I first started as a Barista.
And Lance always has the answer. ♥
I grind to the Sette 270's cup. I shake it a bit. Throw it into the basket. Gentle tap. Wdt. NCD like distributor. Tamp. Puck screen (i don't like the concentrated water flow of my machine). Extraction time.
Thank you Lance for all these recent brilliant uploads. This in particular, relived me from massive frustration that I was going to change my grinder.
I was directly grinding into portafilter and getting really skewed results. All fixed now, thanks to a few shakes before dosing!
I think that, WDT and the Moonraker and such, the grounds are being sorted with the smallest grinds at the bottom and the largest to the top. The problem being that grinds of a larger size, are getting less water contact time. In the blind shaker, even distribution where the fines and boulders are homogeneous, it produces an even flow (Pearl Jam). It's less like mixing chocolate chips in cookie dough and more like mixing sand, gravel and rocks with water, the sand will always find its way to the bottom, and then the gravel then the rocks. So we are left with the 007 of distribution, shaken not stirred.
Shots arrive like butterflies
Came for the enlightening comment. Stayed bc Pearl Jam
Thanks you so much for the video, my 78s Sculptor grinder is finally acting seasoned:) Shaking and tidying the top is working a treat.
Hi @RobertW80, do you use the dosing cup of timemore for shaking?
@@dirkverlinden913 Hi, yes, I use the dosing cup of the 78s, but then a funnel and my 'cute' 45mm baskets for a ponte vecchio lever machine.
I find grinding into a glass container and giving it a Good bang and a stir with a Wooden cocktail stick,then pouring into my portafilter and a next tappetey tap then tamp with spring tamp + puck screen (no water added to beans)
Using a niche zero,I believe the destat is essential 😺
Nice, basically a DIY shaker
Wow Lance there so much work has gone into this video. As a newbie your videos are a fanatic source of information you’ve really helped me improve my espresso. This morning I tried a good old shake before transferring to the basket and really just sorted out the puck surface with the WDT tool and double tamp. All the espressos were a significant step up from where they’ve been, extractions were way more even . Wife said her coffee this morning was a life time best ever. Basically you and your teams vid just justified all the money I’ve spent of a coffee kit. I owe You big time!
Great video! Interest results, I would like to know if the shots were also tasted to check which method pulled the best tasting shots. Just curious because higher extraction doesn’t always mean better tasting shots, so the combination of this data would be more helpful I think
Good on you. For being so upfront with your personal stuff. ❤
Only one question, does higher extraction yield make a better tasting coffee always? In the audio community what measures great does'nt always sound better than that which measures worse. Keep up the good work.
Also wondered the same.
If I remember correctly, the belief in this metric is that higher extraction yield in the shot = a better overall distribution of water over the grounds, which directly correlates to a more uniform distribution of grounds in the portafilter and lack of clumps or other physical abnormalities, prior to the tamp. An inconsistently distributed, clumpy basket would thus be limited in terms of extraction in comparison to one where water is allowed to flow evenly over the entirety of the puck.
The short answer is “no.”
The long answer is that it depends on the coffee. Some coffees taste best at 23% extraction. Some at 17% extraction. Some in between or outside those numbers. What matters is being able to consistently control what variables you can to adjust the extraction predictably and reliably.
At the end of the day, what matters is how the shot tastes, and if you had some nerdy fun along the way then that’s even better 😁
Wow Lance there so much work has gone into this video 👏. As a newbie your videos are a fanatic source of information you’ve really helped me improve my espresso. This morning I tried a good old shake before transferring to the basket and really just sorted out the puck surface with the WDT tool and double tamp. All the espressos were a significant step up from where they’ve been, extractions were way more even . Wife said her coffee this morning was a life time best ever. Basically you and your teams vid just justified all the money I’ve spent of a coffee kit. I owe You big time!
Incredible research
These last 2 videos have absolutely killed it with the quality of data and practicality. Thanks man
Morning Lance, I really liked the style of presenting your findings! In the future it would be helpful for me personally if you'd make a little colored mark in the finding sheets when you talk about specific points in your results. Specifically shot time and extraction sheets were shown for a few seconds and then your got to the next subject. You might argue: pause the video and so on, but I don't want to. You got an interesting subject, you present very good, but with the speed you have I am getting a bit behind comprehending and would like to see the sheets a bit longer and some highlight markers over the current subject.
Content wise it really helped me. I use a sage expresso grinder, cheaper than the weber and it really helps not choosing to grind into portafilter and try the shaking the grounds in the container method. Thank you for the effort! Gratings for Germany. ❤
Great video at the perfect time. I've been struggling with one sided extraction no matter how much I use the wdt method. It was only the day before your dropped this that I pondered whether it was caused by sitting the portafilter on the grinder holder as it was throwing the grinds towards the handle. Simply holding the portafilter and moving it around proved the plausibility of the idea as i had back to back perfection extractions after this.
This video has expanded on that and filled in the blanks.
Can't wait to play with some shaking.
Cheers dude
After grind size, distribution is the one thing that changes my shot the MOST.
what grain size do you recommend ? medium big or little grind ?
Thanks Lance, your focus and dedication to the detail is appreciated.
It sounds like the shaker is doing a macro management of the grounds, and distributing them very well. The needles do something closer to a micro management. And with micro management, you are almost working on every grain of ground coffee individually. With a perfect micro, you shouldn't ignore any ground until you reach the optimum management level.
The needles are not small enough to only affect one ground at a time, so it's not a perfect micro. But possibly, it does quite a little in terms of macro, and leave tons of grounds untouched. And possibly, it hurts some grounds, because the grounds are not necessarily managed well.
I agree. The shaker is mixing fines and boulders to make the grounds more homogeneous. Excessive WDT might even make it less homogeneous as the fines fall to the bottom and the boulders stay on top.
I personally find that fluffing in a small, rounded bowl is even better than shaking in a cup with corners. It does the macro homogenation while also avoiding clumping. But maybe it’s just a matter of technique. Don’t shake the shaker like it’s a cocktail; toss the contents like it’s a salad. And if WDT is needed to break up clumps, do it first, then toss, pour, level, and tamp.
your best video yet, incredible content with great editing, shots and voice-over
The funny thing is there was no voice over. All filmed. He just edited it this way. I just spoke the whole time lol
So what I see here is that you've tested more or less the worst scenario (meaning the best grind and least clumping from the get go), which makes these tools have less to do.
I would love to see the opposite. You could keep the grinder etc as you already have, but instead introduce more clumping before doing your tests. An idea could be pouring the coffee in, do a tamp, and THEN rip all up using a spoon or similar, use the chosen tool afterwards, then retamp.
Then you should have introduced a lot of clumping and should allow as much as possible of the declumping to the tool you're testing.
But as always, great videos. Great that you are testing as vigorously as you do
I agree in general, but tearing up a tamped grounds will be horribly inconsistent and quite far from reality. Better to use a more common household grinder in the 150€-500€ range, which would also be a far closer match to a home barista setup.
@@Sebb747 that was my initial thinking too. But I then realized that a household grinder would add lots of variability in grind size too, making them unreliable for this sort of testing.
That’s exactly what I was thinking and feel like this definitely needs to be redone before Lance praisers go preach this message everywhere that blind shakers are 100% the best.
Agreed, these were already distributed via 1 method, so he’s really just resting a 2nd layer of distributing making this entire test/video useless
It's a neat idea and a fun experiment, but I don't see how that actually makes a difference for reality. If the shaker was doing enough and in less time while the other tools weren't able to improve upon the base scenario it created... then I'm not sure the data coming out of this artificial tamp and break would say much that's useful.
Excellent Video! Time also flew by, loved the presentation and the way you made your "biases" perfectly clear as in what exactly you did and how it might affect others (grinding directly into the portafilter) differently. Great Job Lance!
Definitely enlightening, would be insteresting too see the same experiment but dose the baskets with a normal dosing cup (and dose the blind shaker from a normal dosing cup)
EDIT: would also be nice to hear about the flavour difference if any, as we know higher extraction doesn't always mean better
Yes. Normal dosing cup vs blind shaker vs versa cup vs magic tumbler.
Yes and also grinding directly in the portafilter
Don't know about tasting 60 espresso back to back. I wouldn't sleep for a week.
@@Serafiniertyou’d be dead for OD’ing!
@@carlesmiquel slurp and spit lol
Thanks for confirming that shaking the grounds inside my manual grinder is all that is needed!
Personally, I'm getting more consistent shots if I just shake my portafilter with the Niche dosing cup rather than using my WDT tool. I always wondered why. Now, I (might) know. Thanks for your insane level of dedication! I wonder if excessive EDTing as suggested in this recent study would still have a significant effect.
Same thing I do
Yeah I'm sure the 0.5% difference in extraction you probably achieved really translated to a noticeable real world taste difference 🤨
@@Tass...It’s 0.5% of 20% extraction so there’s a 2.5% improvement. Some might be able to taste it.
Hooray! Streamlined workflow. One less tool. Looking at my Niche dosing cup with a new light.
@@Conservator. Slightly questionable math
This is fantastic Lance!!! The results are surprising yet not surprising. I've often wondered if all the "things" we do to try to get the best results are counterproductive or doing nothing at all. This proves, at least in your controlled testing, that may be the case. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into these tests, and for putting yourself out there knowing the coffee community can be less than receptive to information that my counter their current views. Keep up the great work, and nice job on the camera work and edit Hugo!!
As someone who has actively resisted the WDT needle tool movement this video makes me very happy!
I have to say that music added to the video is a nice touch! Great work Lance, thanks 🙏
My main reason for using the 3d printed Umikot is that it makes the puck prep consistent, no matter what, and I haven't really had any bad shots since I started using it, which certainly wasn't the case before. I often had channeling issues, probably because I wasn't paying attention or had a sleepy head, and I have the feeling this saves me from all of that. Could I have better extraction using another method? Maybe - but I'd also have a lot more terrible shots too.
Thank you so much Lance for giving us an excellent base line to further test against. 🎉 I need to up my patreon donation. Surely you’ve more than earned it.
Great finding. Would love to see if combining the shaker and the WDT would get you better extraction in the future.
Seems to not be the case when you consider the way he didn't dose direct to porta filter. WDT would like lower extraction if done after using a shaker, based on his results and what he stated in the video as it would disturb the bottom of the bed.
This changes everything! Love that you really go through your methodology and that your graphs show all the data points. Guess that I have to find a blind tumbler instead of the WDT. Also a quicker step than WDT before every shot.
Awesome video, nice and concise. Would love to see the same experiments in a direct to portafilter format (which i guess is what most of us do). Cheers! Love your content
Glad I found this video! Lance, you’ve come along way since the Brevelle espresso days in the beginning!!
Fantastic experiment and great results! I love the actual science you’re doing here Lance. The repeat testing and stats put your work in a league of its own. The data are the data and your results are clear. Great “discussion section” part trying to put it all into context and interpret it for us as well.
Thank you for all the effort you put into this.
Since most people don't have a Weber shaker the results won't help unless we all get a Weber shaker :(
There’s a certain appeal to this. With as complicated as espresso machines can be with temperature and pressure profiles, as expensive it is to move to a grinder one tier up, it seems wonderful that all the faffing about with grounds and puck prep probably doesn’t matter as much as we thought. Spritz, grind, shake, tamp and go. I think I want it to be true, and so far evidence suggests it might be.
Honestly the WDT is more of a meditation tool at this point. It didn’t really do anything other than add time to my routine, but it’s always been fun to use. I’ve always had great shots with just a shake using the dosing cup.
Puck prep is still important... It's just that the initial distribution is already good in his experiment because of the WW magic tumbler he uses for every method before distribution.
Good job Lance, always intelligent and insightful... thank you.❤
Lance is really on one of his greatest video streaks maybe in his career. Amazing info in this
Helpful! I've been using a regular wdt and consistency has been a big issue, leading to channeling. Gonna try out a different setup!
Oh man, my blind shaker is giving me the, “I told you so” look 😅😅😅
Thank you for this! I have been grinding straight into my dosing cup for some time because I found the most consistency.
so shaker, leveled tamper, top screen, bottom paper for ims/vst style baskets, no bottom paper for expensive baskets unless for cleanliness or on a fancy machine, freeze or wet your beans before grinding, do cupping, and buy good beans
Always raising the topics covered one level Lance, it's a pleasure that you share these experiments!
Omg I feel so much better about stopping using my Wdt over the weber shaker for the past couple months after watching this. I got a 3d printed copy of the moonraker but stopped using it because I felt it was just more messy. This video is awesome!
Depends on how good your grinder is. If you have a POS grinder it will matter more.
@@Steph-ud9kfThat makes sense, I guess it's kind of like over optimising
The video editing has always been amazing but this video is so well done.
Hi Lance, i'm 15 years old and have been tasked to create a study on anything of my choice for school. I was wondering if you would be able to provide any help or guidance for me as my chosen study is: "Coffee Ground Distribution Method Suitability for Commercial Settings"
I wanted to try this out after seeing this video. I have a hand grinder and I put the receiver cup with ground beans on my porta filter with a dosing funnel, gave it a shake, did a little manual WDT just to get the top surface flat… and honesty best cup so far!!!! Thank you Lance!
To get the top surface flat, instead of WDT are you open to trying his tapping method instead?
@@error.418I always tap the bottom of the porta filter once, lightly, on the a silicone mat that’s sitting on my counter. Just to get the beans off the edge of my dosing funnel. Feels satisfying. I personally feel like it’s more accurate / consistent than hitting it on the side with my hand
@@craigbagolphoto Oh you can mix the two, mat tap for initial settle, than side taps to even things out
wonder if this could work without wdt tool. hoping for one less step and one less tool
Absolutely fascinating. I would like to see a couple more datasets, in particular with espresso grinders consumers are more likely to have. What is best practices on a "clumpy grinder"? Also, I'd like to see a dataset with direct to portafilter, and a best practices there as well.
Awesome work! Makes absolute sense when you think about it: Shaking homogenizes the grounds so that fines, boulders and everything in between is distributed as randomly as possible and thus giving an even flow through the puck. Clumps don't matter as they are smashed by tamping.
What WDT in contrast does, is distributing a significant "mass" of grounds around the basket. While not necessarily bad, it is not actually "mixing" all the differently sized particles around at random, as the shaking does. So there will be areas with more fines and slower flow as well as areas with less fines and faster flow and basically channeling. So even though the "mass" of grounds is distributed around in the basket evenly, the particles themselves are not mixed evenly. If done excessively (and depending on consistency of the technique) it should probably even cause the fines to separate and migrate to the bottom.
It would’ve been super cool to see a combination of the blind shaker plus WDT / other distributors and compare that data!
Yes can we please see this!
I used just the magic tumbler with my weber key but switched to Autocomb followed by NCD and feel my shots are more consistent. But feel is different from stats.
Didn't he used the grey blind shaker in ALL the techniques? See 6:43
@@MichaelBxlI don't think he shook it in there, just dumped it. right?
@@thepatwalsh88 you are right. I guess that is the most logical though it is not really clear in the video for me.
@@MichaelBxl I agree it's left a bit ambiguous.
Since I have a DF64, I dose in its cup, then put it directly on top of the portafilter just like you did at 14:15. The problem is that IF you don't shake most of the coffee sits on one side... basically there's more ground on the side that falls first. So I use needles (cheepo WDT tool) to distribute. Strangely enough, and as you mentioned, WDT doesn't do much about this. There is still more ground on one side, so much so that after tapping the PF on the kitchen top, I have to "touch up" the surface and move some grounds to the other side. I'll try to change the routine and simply shake like you're preparing a cocktail (although it will probably be slightly messy as the cup isn't a perfect fit), and then touch up the surface. Then see if I get more consistent shots, since I log every shot anyway.
Really enjoyed this, thankyou. I appreciate and understand why you did it this way but id love to see the results of a direct grind to portafilter, with a good grinder, maybe not endgame, a bit more of a real life scenario.
Also, idea for a video... Ristrettos! Id love a deep dive! Theres a lot of conflicting and just wrong ideas on this, a lot of them way out of date for "modern" espresso.
Big love from Yorkshire UK.
I'd love to see a deep dive on ristrettos!
This is absolutely a breath of fresh air. Ive been going nuts trying to justify buying a 3d printer for a Umikot or just buying a Moonraker. Knowing that just SHAKING my grounds in my dosing cup will simplify my morning workflow so much.
Definitely trying the shaking method first thing tomorrow morning
Hmm, shake with cup, wdt just to level the top, double tamp? I’ll give that a go, sounds simple enough.
The glass from the Costco Delici Sea Salt Caramel Mousse cups perfectly fit a 58mm portafilter and are great for this distribution method. Just thought I would drop that out there since I have repurposed the glasses years ago for coffee use. You get 6 in the pack, so you will have spares, and also a sweet dessert with your coffee.
This is a great win in terms of workflow.
Well, direct to portafilter plus manual WDT is pretty convenient compared with having to have another vessel to now grind into. Especially if you then also use the moonraker to better distribute the top layer.
Really interesting results, counterintuitive at first but makes sense. The bottom of the bed is critical and a quick shake works better than all the fancy tools that disrupt a simple process. Thanks for doing the testing to teach the community
I’m new to home espresso (6 months) and I kind of think that this gives me an advantage in the sense that I haven’t grown up in the hobby with the tools being gradually introduced and skewing my thoughts, they are all there in front of me now. What I’m very poorly trying to say is that common sense tells me a shake with a dosing cup and then a tap will always get the job done. I am susceptible to gimmicks in anything I try my hand at including WDT etc.
S/O the editor for that reverse masking transition before 7min. So good
Lance I really feel like the video quality has been going way up recently. The editing has been getting a lot tighter, and you are doing a better job at continuing the video audio while cutting to b roll instead of leaving dead air. The scripts feel much more concise too!
I have a Eureka Mignon Libra (weight based) grinder. When grinding directly into a naked portafilter, my friend and I consistently noticed that the same half of the basked would saturate/extract before the other half. After many more shots, we realized what Lance confirms here at 7:00. Manual WDT has been mandatory ever since due to the way that the grounds are unevenly deposited into the portafilter.
We have to evenly distribute the love for coffee around the world!
My brain is spinning with this lol. I used to use a dosing cup instead of pouring straight into my portafilter. However, I finally got a grinder that could hold my porta with a funnel so I no longer needed this “extra” step. The dosing cup is now used to weight the beans, into which I spray rdt before grinding. Since some water stays in the cup, I don’t want to use it to catch the grounds, at least in my current workflow. Guess it’s time to get that Loveramics dosing cup I’ve been eying 😅
Looking back and actually putting things into perspective, I’ve always shake the coffee grounds in my dosing cup and shake it again in my portafilter and did a surface level WDT. This has been the most consistent method for me.
I’ve used the OCD tool to kinda make it an even ground but I found that those shots tend to be the most inconsistent.
This video was great ! Thank you for the thorough explanation and willingness to experiment for all of us!
Some people in the comments are taking this new discovery as “see? We’ve been over-complicating espresso!”
I think the more interesting conclusion is: the path to good espresso isn’t always intuitive or obvious.
We used to think that a fast extraction was bad and that you should cut a shot off when it blonds. We thought that crema is delicious and that high brew temperatures burn the coffee.
But sometimes you have to (forgive the pun) shake things up a little to make progress :)
Im so happy about your video. I just had a discussion about how the moonraker is a game changer, but i did not see any improvements at all. but its a long time since i ground the last time directly in to the portafilter, so i know i have to watch out for inconsistencies😅
Lance, thank you for this video. I've been holding off a WDT of some sort for years, not thinking much of it and grinding direct to portafilter. After this video it points me in the right direction and I'll try out grinder direct to cup, shake, then portafilter.
Very interesting results! At the end of the day I think you are correct in saying that we are over doing things. Like any hobby people always seek methods to improve the process, but sometimes the best way to improve the process is to do less (remember the KISS method). This also shows that for some the goal isn’t necessarily better or improved extractions, but more as a flex to who has the most expensive tools and keeps up with the current and popular trends. Me personally, I just want the best cup of coffee possible and at the same time enjoy tinkering. 😀 Thank you for another great video, I always enjoy your content.
Crazy work... And mind-blowing results ! Thanks (once again) for that.
Thanks for the hard work Lance, amazing data!
Great video, thanks. It echoes my experience with coffees from very light roasts to neapolitan in my la pavoni europiccola manual lever and I thought I was doing something wrong(likely I was using WDT wrong). I have a 0.3mm 9-needle wdt tool and a small (4x4cm) tupperware container. I always get the best results when I grind into that tupperware container, I shake it a bit, I put grounds into the portafilter and I only use WDT on the very top ~2mm of coffee to distribute it evenly. Then I give it few taps on the table and tamp. This is my most consistent, best extraction ever technique. Every single time I WDT'ed the entire depth the results were worse. My observations go even further, I use Eureka Mignon grinder and it doesn't clump much. I noticed, especially with very light roasts that I grind very fine (they are prone to channelling with slightest unevenness in distribution if not pre infused a looong time) when I ground directly to the portafilter I got much better results just using the WDT tool to distribute the very top 2~3mm of grounds than "going all the way". I'm glad to see my subjective experience validated scientifically by your video :-)
Right so been getting into Espresso lately, found an 80 euro Lelit Anna, looking for a grinder and tools. This video just saved me some cash actually, needle tool, dosing cup and a self leveling tamper, no more distribution tool needed
Proud to be a Patreon. This is amazing thanks lance
Fantastic video Lance, really appreciate it!
14:15 was a great lightbulb moment for me. I have a Cafelat Robot and a Timemore 064s, and the dosing cup fits perfectly into the portafilter. I'll be trying this out, no needles this week.
Laance you're on your way to revolutionize puck prep, we need to get to the bottom of this 😊
this is Lance's best video. hope to see some more people retest this to see if they get similar results